not what though you doe not leave them as Antichristian Babilonish as false and untrue yet if you leave such Churches because impure defective under bondage not of so good a constitution in this you condemne them and so are guilty of schisme I aske of you if the members of some of your Churches should upon grounds not because you are false Churches and false Ministers but because you are not to pure as some others nor as they could set up a Church as for instance because wicked men are admitted to prayer amongst you or because the ordinance of Hymnes is not yet setled in all your Churches c. forsake and leave your Assemblies and yet should openly professe they doe not condemne your Churches as no Churches but only joyne to Churches of a purer constitution or set up a new Church as Mr Simpson did whether is this a schisme and separation doe you not hold this unlawfull especially this being without your consents nay against them as not being satisfied in the reasons and causes of such a departure Now if it be schisme and separation in some of your members pray free your selves and in your Reply wash your Churches from this offence in withdrawing from ours and answer that axiome that magis minus non variant speciem and what ever you can say for your departing from us to enjoy further degrees of purity or because our Churches are defective in some ordinances c. that your members may for themselves for according to your own confession in Apologie page 30. you differ little from us and the reformed Church yea farre lesse then the Anabaptists or some sort of Brownists doe from you Now then I put this Dilemma to you whether is it schisme in your members or not if it be schisme in them and they may not leave your Churches then it is schisme in you and you may not forsake ours but if it be no schisme in them but they may doe so members may still goe from one pure Church to a purer according to their new light then satisfie me where you will stay and make a stand and what is schisme and separation and whether a great gap and wide dore be not left open for schisme upon schisme and separation upon separation from your Churches to the Brownists and from the Brownists to the Anabaptists and so in infinitum And let me tell you though you who are Schollers have found out these distinctions about our Churches and Ministers whereby you think you salve all and so make account you are not guilty of schisme as the learned Papists having distinctions about Images Worship c. say they worship not the Images but the persons in the Images c. though the people who doe not so well understand nor cannot always remember such distinctions worship the very Images and that with the same worship as they doe God so the people who by your counsell and example had forsaken our Churches they leave our Churches and Ministers as not true they condemne our Churches and Ministers and wonder at those passages in your Apologie page 6. and say they took you otherwise and so they become guilty of schisme and separation without such distinctions though you with distinctions For that title of Independencie affixed unto you as your claime it is well you call it a proud and insolent title had I stiled it so in my Reasons against Independent governement it would have been counted by your side a reviling of the way of God and a casting great reproach upon Christs government but I shall give you and the reader a good account for that title affixed unto the Church-way and communion that you are of and if it be offensive you must blame your selves and your own party and not me This Independencie and Independent government was a name of your own giving and sure I and others might lawfully call the child by the name the father and friends gave it To speak nothing of the name of Independent government given to particular Congregations in many books of the totall Separatists maintaining it formally in those words it will be found in many printed books and manuscripts written by many men of your way and communion namely of the middle way as you call it who owne and call the government of particular Congregations Independant and reason for it under that name Amongst others you shall find it in these books Protestation Protested Mr Davenports Profession of his Faith Sions Prerogative royall A Discourse opening the nature of Episcopacie The Answer from new-New-England to Mr Herles book against Independencie in Christ upon his Throne and in manuscripts not a few particularly in a manuscript intituled a Treatise about a Church going under one of your names speakes often of Independent power and Independent government Besides Independent government hath been preached for at Margrets Church in Westminster and the City of London in those words so that I wonder how you dare make such a flourish for my part I should never have invented the name neither would it have ever entred into my mind but that it was common in the books manuscripts and mouthes of men of your way And this hath been taken so for granted that not I alone who might more easily have mistaken writ against the government of your Congregations under that name but the learned and reverend Divines of Scotland writ against it under that name using those tearms and phrases often and the learned Divines of Holland particularly Voctius and a learned and ingenious Divine of our own too writ against your government under the title of Independencie whose book containes many passages particularly referring to you the Apologists And so â— Mr Channell who candidly testifies for you even when he would free you from being called Brownists yet saith you be commonly cal'd the Independent Ministers and doth by way of distinction from the reformed Churches call your Congregations Independent But yet further to fasten on you as you are pleased to stile it that proud and insolent title of Independencie however that you disclaime the title here and in other pages 14 21 yet you acknowledge the thing abundantly in the book namely a full and entire power compleat within your selves untill you be challenged to erre grossely and then when you are challenged to erre grossely and upon examination and deposition it is fully proved yet you will not subject to any Authoritative Ecclesiasticall power out of the particular Congregation this is the only thing in your Apology largely and with any seeming strength insisted upon and for the exemption from that you have found out the device of submission and non-communion and tell us your solemne practise upon it with the successe of it Now what else hath been fastned on you as your claime by them who have writ against your way but this did any of the Divines commended by you or did I in my reasons against your governement
which is imply'd by you in the close of this Section as also that you might have some maintenance by the people that went over with you and still hoped upon the bad times in England to draw over more which according to the good old non-conformists principles you could not doe As also that you might secure your selves from all possibility and feare of persecutions be certainely safe upon the shore whilst your brethren were at sea sea in the storme This being our condition we were cast upon a farther necessity of enquiring into and viewing the light part the positive partof Church-worship and government And to that end to search out what were the first Apostolique directions patterne and examples of those Primitive Churches recorded in the New Testament as that sacred pillar of fire to guide us And in this enquire we lookt upon the word of Christ as impartially and unprejudicedly as men made of flesh and blood are like to doe in any juncture of time that may fall out the places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with affording no temptations to byas us any way but leaving us as freely to be guided by that light and touch Gods Spirit should by the word vouchsafe our consciences as the Needle toucht with the Load-stone is in the Compasse And we had of all men the greatest reason to be true to our own consciences in what we should embrace seeing it was for our consciences that we were deprived at once of what ever was deare to us We had no new Common-wealths to reare to frame Church-government unto whereof any one piece might stand in the others light to cause the least variation by us from the Primitive pattern we had no State-ends or Politicall interests to comply with No Kingdoms in our â—…ye to subdue unto our mould which yet will be coexsistent with the peace of any forme of Civill Government on earth No prefenment or worldly respects to shape our opinions for we had nothing else to doe but simply and singly to consider how to worship God acceptably and so most according to his word This being our condition must relate to what goes before which I judge from the literall and gramaticall sense can be no other but this That falling from the Ceremonies which was enough to deprive you of your Ministeries and the participation of some Ordinances and further exposed you to violence or exile to avoide it which latter of exile you chusing rather for the ends specified that put you upon a necessity of enquiring into and viewing the light part the positive part of Church-worship and Government Which words seeme to carry this sense that upon your chusing exile you fell upon enquiring into the light part and not before and all the understanding Readers whom I have spoken with about this passage take them so But because you doe not positively say so and your words may have some evasion and I would not fasten any thing on you as said by you in this book that you affirme not Let me put to you for the understanding your minds this question Whether you take chusing an Exile for your resolution and purpose when you should see convenient time to leave the Land and not for your actuall leaving the Kingdome and so fell upon enquiring and viewing the positive part of Church-worship and Government and to that end to search out what were the first Apostolique directions recorded in the New Testament whilst you were in the Kingdome Or else Whether after you were come into Holland and so actually were Exiles then you were cast upon the enquiring into the light part Now if you meane these words in the first sense and that the Reader must understand them so which I must tell you as it is a very harsh sense and for a Narration to speake so doubtfully is not faire so all your discourse following upon it in the 3 4 5 6 7 page is vaine and to no purpose to work that in the minds of the Reader which you drive at Besides there are many passages in those pages cannot admit of such a sense but plainely referre to your being in Holland as those words The places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with and we had of all men the greatest reason to be true to our own consciences in what we should embrace seeing it was for our consciences that we were deprived at once of what ever was deare to us with many other like passages But if you meane the words in the second sense as the coherence and scope of the discourse going before and following carry it namely that when you were in Exile then you began to search out the positive part of Church-worship and Government let me propound my reasons why I doe not beleeve it but doe judge that most of you if not all were upon the light part and in the Church-way in your judgements before your leaving England and so when you came over needed no great search into it In the sixt page you speake expressely that some of you were actually in this way of communion and after that baptized your children in Parishonall Congregations which words there exprest must of necessity referre to England before your going over and cannot be understood whilst you were in Holland or since your returne into England unlesse you meane things quite otherwise then you speake And that you were beyond the darke part the evill of those superstitions adjoyned to the worship of God which have been the common stumbling-block of many thousand tender consciences which cannot be understood but of the Ceremonies and some corruptions in the Lyturgy let me besides your own confession in the sixt page put these questions to your consciences and in your answer deny them if you can 1. Whether some of you whilst you were in England did not for a long time wholly forbeare comming to the Lyturgy and comming to the Lords Supper at all in our Congregations because of the prescribed forme of Prayer and mixt Communion 2. Whether one of you five told not some friends that he had found out a forme of Church-government as farre beyond M Cartwrights as his was beyond that of Bishops 3. Whether another of you had not so much declared his judgement against the lawfulnesse of set formes of prayer prescribed as thereupon at the request of some great persons of worth Mr Ball now with God had not a conference and dispute with him at Mr Knightlyes upon it And whether the same person residing near Banbury did not both by preaching and otherways vent many things against prescribed formes of prayer and Communicating in our assemblies so that the Countrey thereabouts was much disturbed and that painfull preacher Mr Wheateley now with God much grieved by the falling off and withdrawing of some 4. Whether also one of these Apologists was not so farre gone in the principles of the
of this they make things accidentally evill according as this is things are or are not ordinances and meanes of salvation Baptisme is no baptisme unlesse it be administered by a Minister A Minister is no Minister unlesse cal'd by the Church and so I might speake of other things By all which it will appeare that Mr Simpson had thoughts and doubts and would have others have such thoughts too that we have neither Churches nor Ordinances nor Ministers according to his definition of a Church and to the matter contained in his letter and in the close of his letter though he writes I meddle not with judging of these things with you but propound you a rule or way to judge of things by I dare not say your Congregations are not Churches but desire you to looke that they be so for your owne peace yet it is evident by what he sayes in his letter that he accounts neither our Churches nor our Ministers true and would stumble him in these things to whom he wrote I have a manuscript entituled a Treatise of the Church going under the name of one of these Apologists and a godly Minister from whose hands I had it assured it me it was his In which Treatise there is an answer to this question But suppose Saints live in a Nation wherein there is some kind of a Church constituted already may they gather themselves into a Church The Answer is as followes 1. If you suppose that there are Churches in England yet such as never were truly members of any of them are free to begin and gather themselves into a Church and to be of the best Institution they can this libertie we under the Gospel have which the Jewes had not 2. Although they are Churches yet we â—…re not to continue in them and not remaine from them 1. In that they are Churches defective in some Ordinances as namely Prophecying mutuall admonition excommunication 2. They are Churches defiled in our judgements in which communicating we cannot but be defiled now though they be Churches as a leprous man was a man yet being defiled we cannot communiâ—…ate with them and so in regard of our use now no Churches and in the same page it is added we may be kept from joyning with the true Church and yet not withdraw from these as no Churches but as no Churches of use to us Now I appeale to the Reader what he can judge of your profession in the sixt page and of these passages in your letters and manuscripts and as some of your hands are contrary to this profession so your workes are contrary to it in forsaking the communion of our Churches and ministerie and in drawing others away and in writing to many to come to you and in setting up Churches and pray deale ingeniously once in your Reply seeing you ever held and doe now much more that our Assemblies are true Churches and our Ministers true Ministers how you can satisfie your owne consciences and us from any Scripture ground either of precept or example to separate from us I am assured you cannot produce any ground and that all Scripture instances whether in examples or precepts will never come up to your practise and case But Brethren why will you in a Narration that should be plaine that all who â—…unne may reade it deale thus fallaciously amuse the Reader with your profession of our Churches and Ministerie in such generals and never declare what you hold particularly of them Few Readers unlesse some who have throughly studied your principles and distinctions being never the wiser for your profession I must therefore of necessity English your words and tell the meaning of all this That is neither the Church or Churches of England nor the Ministery thereof as they are in their frame and constitution according to the Lawes and as they are in their visible order are true Churches or true Ministerie But now so farre as in many of our Parochiall Congregations there is something common with what you hold about a Church and Ministerie so farre true and not Antichristian As for example you hold that in some Congregations we have many visible Saints and in some Parishes Ministers chosen by the people which Ministers preach and pray according to your way but for what we else practise in our making of Ministers in our formes of prescribed prayers c. So no true Churches nor Ministerie And that this is your meaning will appeare by what followes 1. Letters and speeches of some of your way who write not so warily as you show so much Mr Batchelour a member of your Church-way in printed letters of his dated from Rotterdam September the 4th 1641. both to Ministers here in London and to Citizens speakes thus in reference to you And whereas it is beleeved they are friends to separation this I can assure you that they denie not the Churches in England such as M. Calamies and M. Goodwins in Coleman-street to be true Churches And why M. Goodwins and M. Calamies but because they were chosen by the Congregations and there are many visible Saints in those Congregations and so others of your way having been reasoned with how according to your principles That there is no Nationall visible Church under the new Testament no visible Church but a particular Congregation and that the Essence of Ministers calling is Election by the people and that the forme of a Church is a particular Covenant with other things of this Nature And therefore considering the Church of England is Nationall and hath no such Covenant nor such a way of Ministerie how they could hold we had true Churches and true Ministers Their Answer hath been You have Implicite Churches and Implicite Ministers But if you will say you understand your words in this Section not as M. Batchelour nor as others of your way but plainly as Divines usually take Churches and Ministerie then I desire you to reconcile together all your definitions and descriptions of true visible Churches and true Ministers with our Church and Ministery of England And for further satisfaction in this point I desire you in your reply to this Answer candidly and clearely to expresse your selves when you fell to your Church-way and were to be taken for Ministers in those Churches whether you held your selves or were look'd upon by your Churches as true Ministers by vertue of your calling in England Or whether rather you were not lookt upon only as gifted men and did not some of you at least renounce and disclaime your calling in England and were made Ministers a new by the Church consisting only of people or lay-Elders at the best without Ministers M. Williams in his Answer to M. Cottons letter openly justifies they held and practised so in new-New-England Now your principles agreeing so with theirs and some Stories related to me of some of you makes me doubt the same of you As for that reason you give why you never held our Churches no
true Churches namely your seeing that if you had accounted our Churches no true Churches that by the same reason the Churches abroad in Scotland Holland c. yet for their mixture must in like manner be judged no Churches also I answer 't is no concluding Argument M. Robinson who was quick-sighted and lived in Holland long and seeing their mixture yet acknowledges those Churches true but denies ours to be true upon other grounds besides the mixture and 't is evident your reason is insufficient for if your description of a visible Church were only upon difference in the point of mixture and your grounds of separation only upon mixt communion then your Reason had some weight in it but you know your exceptions were many against our Churches which lay not against the Reformed Churches but it is strange to me if you were so good at consequences that you saw and could not but see when there was no necessitie of seeing you could not see the necessarie consequences of your principles about a Church and Ministerie nay not see even your contradictions For let a man but take your owne Positions and Assertions concerning a true visible Church and the true calling of Ministers and lay together your quarrelling with us and leaving us upon those grounds because we have no such Churches and Ministers and yeâ—… to affirme that multitudes of our Parochiall Churches are true Churches And certainly however you who are Schollars might be such good Logicians to make such distinctions to salve all as you conceited yet your people could not but they from your principles and positions about Church Ministerie Worship and Government have judged us no true Churches nor true Ministers but have wondred at this sincere profession of yours before God and the world concerning our Churches and Ministers saying they understood you otherwise and they were much deceived if you held not otherwise at first though now you expresse your selves after this manner And I can hardly beleeve had you made alwaies and frequently such professions of our Churches and Ministers and of keeping communion with them as the Churches of Christ that ever so many had fallen off to your way But thus 't is in all the way of errours men by sits will expresse things as other men do who are Orthodox but yet in a sence of their own to avoid exceptions and that they may be thought to hold as others do therby the more to draw and work some men off to their way when yet in the common sense and understanding of the points they hold otherwise As the Socinians say they hold Christ God and call him so but in a sence of their own and yet denie it in the Orthodox sense So Pelagians and Arminians will extoll the grace of God and that a man can doe nothing without it and yet in that sence wherein the controversie is they set up free-will above the grace of God And so Antinomians will say they doe not denie the law of God and yet in the sense controverted are flat against it And so the Papists will say they hold and looke to be saved by Christ as well as any Protestant though it 's well knowne there is a great difference betweene them in the point of Justification So you and many of your way in a sense of your owne give us good words and say we have true Churches and true Ministerie and yet in the sense of the controversie you teach flat contrary as doth appeare both by printed Tractâ—…tes and by manuscripts and many practises As to that Profession in this Section That in the times when the Churches of England were most either actually overspread with defilements or in the greatest danger therof that we both did and would bold a communion with them as the Churches of Christ I answer what doe I heare words when I see deeds so contrary How can I beleeve this profession that ye would hold communion with the Churches of England as the Churches of Christ under their greatest defilements when as you have never held communion with any of them in the time of their greatest reformation and puritie In this three yeares last since your comming over wherein we have been so free from pollution in worship and since that in so many Churches in London there hath bin the totall laying aside of prescribed formes of prayer and that great care to keepe away both ignorant and prophane persons Which of you five have received the Lords Supper in any of these true Churches and bodies of Christ I never could learne that any of you five nor any of the members of your Churches have communicated with us I can tell you of the adding to your Church Assemblies great numbers since and of your receiving the Lords Supper at night in private houses and how some of you who have not Churches here in London goe to separated Churches to partake in the Lords Supper But Brethren why doe you deale thus and write thus to make men beleeve as if you held great communion with our Churches now who would have held it with them in such bad times I desire you to speake plaine English and not to speake after this manner as you doe too often in this Apologie and to interpret to us in your Reply to this Answer what you meane by both Did and Would hold communion with the Churches of England as the Churches of Christ I know no communion you did hold or doe with us now though so reformed And if you do and will what means that wall of partition between us your new constituted Churches As for thâ—…â—…aring of Sermons sometimes in our Churches and preachiâ—…g in our Congregations I doubt whether you hold that a keeping communion with our Churches and Ministers but rather preach as gifted men and heare ours as gifted men and how ever if M. Robinson and some of your way may be beleeved they hold hearing of the Word no Act of Communion nor no proper nor peculiar thing of the Church And that you are of the same judgement I have great reason both from your principles and practise to thinke so As for that reall testimonie besides your profession That some of us after we actually were in this way of communion baptized our children in Parishionall Congregations whereby you would inferre you held a communion with our Congations as the Churches of Christ I answer this is no reall testimony thereof because it cannot be understood but in the sense before opened of Churches and Ministery And besides if Mr Sympson were one of this Some who baptized his children in Parishionall Congregations 't is so inconsistent with what he writ in the Letter before quoted of the Church and baptisme that I know not how to reconcile these together And the truth is many of your practises are oft times so in-coherent with some of your principles of Church-fellowship as for instance Pastors are necessary Officers in your Churches and yet according
write in any other sense but in the point of Ecclesiasticall government and power did we lay to your charge in our writing against Independencie that you challenged an exemption of all Churches from all subjection and dependance or rather that you should blow a trumpet of desiance against what ever power spirituall or civill did I or any others charge you with refusing all subjection to the civill Magistrate And for that other dependance of consultation and non-communion upon other Churches the power you give in that kind to Synods c. I acknowledged it in my eight reason and argued from thence to the power of excommunication why then doe you deale thus deceitfully and doubly pretending to abhorre and detest Independencie as it was objected and pleaded against you when as besides the very words and phrases found in so many printed books and notes you hold all that in the question which is the difference betwixt you and the Presbyterians as also in some of your books Independent and entire power are termini convertibiles as in the title of Sions Prerogative Royall which entire full compleate power in terminis and in so many sillables you owne more then once in this Apologie so that all your great words of abhorring and detesting the exemption of your Churches from all power spirituall or civill will not save you from Independencie justly affixed unto you As for civill power it is not the question in controversie neither was it affixt unto you and for spirituall power properly cal'd you deny it all along in many pages speaking against authoritative power often page 15 18 19. And to put you this Dilemma either you give authoritative power to other Churches or you doe not if you doe give it why doe you speake so against it in your Apologie but if you doe not give it why would you make your Reader beleeve you doe give spirituall power and are not against it is not this doubling and shuffling and troubling the waters that the Reader cannot tell where to find you nor what you hold too great an evidence of a weake and bad cause becomming not such men as you would be taken for truth is open and naked and doth not seeke out holes and subterfugies But brethren doe not deceive your selves nor your Reader any longer if you be not against spirituall power properly so called of any Classes or Synods in reference to particular Congregations what meane you by all you say from page 12 to the end of the 19 and of all that controversie and Tragedies made by you against the reformed Churches for giving a power to Classes and Synods and let me intreate you that the controversie may be brought to some end between you and us in your Reply set down particularly what you will allow to Classes Synods generall Assemblies and Councels in matter of government and whether that you will allow and give Authority and power yea or no and what you will not give nor allow them and then state the question so and I doe promise you in my Rejoynder to apply my selfe to give you satisfaction as if you except Excommunication Ordination or what else to show you the grounds for them and if we love truth and peace either you shall win me or I you 3. For the odious name of Brownisme together with all their opinions as they have stated and maintained them must needs be owned by us I answer Brownisme as you in these words expresse it hath not been fastned on you by any that I know but on the contrary you have been commonly contra-distinguish'd from them being called Independents Semi-separatists and in my reasons against Independent government I doe in many passages difference you from them and for all their opinions as they have stated and maintained them namely drawing such consequences and conclusions and going so farre as they I have often vindicated you but yet for all that you cannot justly free your selves from the odious name of Brownisme in most of the fundamentall principles and practises of your Churches no not with all your Artifices and specious pretences As the Brownists growing up and out of the Anabaptists did refine and qualifie Anabaptisine in many things in government prophecying c. So have you refined and qualified Brownisme from the grossenesse and rigidnesse of it as it was held by the first Fathers and Authours of it as I could show in many particulars you doe not goe so farre as they neither are you against some practises of other Churches upon those high termes but yet for substance from the first stone to the last in departing from our Assemblies and constituting new you agree with them as by a paralell betweene the way of your Communion and the Separatists lately printed doth appeare And in a word it is evident thus You agree with the way of New-England as is confest by some of yourselves and we may judge so by your high praise of them Now the Churches of New-England agree with them of M. Robinsons Church who are moderate and qualified Brownists Now that the Church-way of New-England is the same with them of M. Robinsons Church is proved thus The Church at New-Plymouth was the first companie that planted in those parts who comming from Leiden where they were members of M. Robinsons Church a moderate Brownist in his latter time practised the Church-opinions and wayes they formerly had in Holland and when they of New-England went over first through their conversing with them and nearenesse of scituation they tooke up and learned their way as appeares by these particulars First M. W. an eminent man of the Church of New-Plymouth told W. R. that the rest of the Churches of New-England at first came to them of Plymouth to crave their direction in Church-courses and made them their patterne Secondly M. Cotton in a letter to M. Skelton one of the first Ministers that went over thither writes thus to him in way of answer to this Position that M. Skelton held That our Congregations in England are none of them particular Reformed Churches but M. Lathrops and such as his This errour requires rather a Booke then a letter to answer it you went hence of another judgement and I am afraid your change hath sprung from New-Plymouth men whom though I much esteeme as godly loving Christians yet their grounds which for this Tenet they received from M. Robinson doe not satisfie me Thirdly There is great commendations given to the Church of Plymouth by M. Cotton after comming to New-England in his letter to M. Williams pag. 13. Fourthly All the Ministers and Elders of New-England doe affirme that all the Churches in New-England viz. in the Bay in the jurisdiction of Plymouth and at Connetâ—…acute are one and the same way in Church constitution government and discipline without any materiall difference Now what can be said more plaine Adde to all these that I had it from the mouth of a
unlesse they be Church members with many more all slat against the Primitive patterns hath ever been from first to last a fountaine of evill and a root of bitternesse of many bitter divisions and separations amongst themselves of manifold errors and other mischiefes in those Churches and places where they lived God having alwayes witnesses against it and never blessing it with peace and truth I shall not need to relate the histories of the Anaptists the highest forme of Independencie and the Church way what evils they fell into and the mischiefes they brought upon Germanie and how God cursed and scattered them As for the Brownists the middle forme of Independencie the Apologists themselves confesse they had fatall miscarriages and shipwracks And I could tell a sad storie but that it would be now too long even from Bolton and Browne the first and prime leaders down to the present Brownists at Amsterdam of the Apostasies Heresies Separations and bitter divisions with the untimely fearefull ends which have fallen out amongst them but in respect my booke so much exceeds the proportion intended I shall reserve that for a more distinct handling And for the semi-Brownists and Independents so cal'd by way of distinction they have not been free The Churches of the Apologists have had their bitter divisions and fearefull miscarriages as the Reader may remember in these pages of this present Answer pag. 35 36 37 142 143 144. with some erroneous conceits fallen into and preached in one of their Churches So in the Churches of new-New-England there have been so many errors differences and evils that I beleeve had we but a true impartiall storie of New-England for the first seven or eight yeares after they were come to any number we should have the strangest storie next that of the Anabaptists and old Brownists one of them in the world in a word they were brought by their Independencie and Church principles next dore to ruine both spirituall and temporall the sad experience of which hath made them wheele about of later yeeres towards Presbyteriall government and in stead of that not being yet formally come to it to take aliquid analogum in the first constituting of Churches making Ministers c. which at first they did not and to give more power to Classes and Synods then they did many yeares agoe as by comparing some Letters from thence in those times written by Ministers over into England and Mr Cottons late booke will be evident In a word he that will observe it shall find the end of Independencie infinite schismes separations errors inconstancie and uncertainty in judgement yea barbarisme and confusion and the Toleration of it by this State would be the opening of a sloud-gate to many other errors and evills besides what evill is in that being a way all along wherein it â—…iffers from the reformed Churches either beside or against the word of God And should the Parliament which God forbid and I hope is farre from their thoughts give the Independents a Toleration of their way and Churches they should give they know noâ—… what having never yet spoken out all that they hold this Apologie containing but a little part of their way besides taking in their second great principle page 10. Apolog of not making their present judgement and practise a binding law for the future the Parliament may grant grosse Brownisme Anabaptisme within a short time many falling off according their principles of new light to cast off communion with their own Churches as some of Mr Sympsons have done and let it be but remembred what I now write whether some of the Apologists if they come not in and joyne with the reformed Churches doe not within a few yeeres goe a great way further I think had they staid together in Holland till this time without any hopes of a Toleration here some of them had gone farre by this time of day Anointing with oyle was begun to be brought in Hymnes had been moved for in one of their Churches and if I may beleeve the report of a religious Person in an open company affirming it againe and againe when I doubted it that a member of the Church of Aâ—…nheim who was also named to me related that had they staid there a little longer the ordinance of Hymnes had been practised amongst them one being chosen and agreed upon by the Church to exercise that ordinance And I am able to demonstrate it that the Apologists keeping but to their principles besides the principle of a Reserve must yet goe a great way further and supposing the Parliament should make a proposition to them Wee will grant you this and this and so which be the present principlâ—…s you hold forth but if you bring in any thing more or goe farther then your Churches shall be dessolved and we will recall what we granted you because we will be sure to know what we allow in matters of Religion be at a certaintie for that I doe not thinke the Apologists would accept of a Toleration upon those tearmes and such a condition The beginnings of errors commonly are most modest but let alone some time they exceed all bounds how farre most of the Arminians proceeded beyond what Arminius held or themselves at first the learned books of many Divines and experience showes and if a Toleration were granted to the Apologists and all those of their communion to exercise their consciences I feare before a yeere went about many would turne Anabaptists c. but I desire rather to pray against a toleration then to prophecie of the evill of it But supposing the best that can be that the State had an Assurance the Apologists and their Churches would not goe one step further then now they hold the Toleration should not be made use of to any further errors yet the Parliament should not allow it unlesse they would grant a Toleratiod of Brownisme and if Brownisme be a bitter error and way then the way of the Apologists is not very sweet their way being but Browns younger brother agreeing with the Brownists in the nature and definition of the visible Church in the Independent power of a particular Congregation in the way of making Officers in the way of their ordinancâ—…s as Prophesying in the way of Forms of Prayer in the Sacraments none to be admitted but Church members cum multis alijs and I desire the Apologists to give any materiall difference however their grounds are different and they doe not goe so farre in consequences nor are not so grosse between their Churches and the Brownists As for that of the power of the people and the Officers in giving the power to the Officers but the Brownists to the people I answer however the Apologists differ in that point from the Brownists in words phrases methods and give us many fine words and flattering similitudes going about yet the truth is they differ not in substance in their practise but all comes to one end and